Playing games is not an accomplishment: How video games make you retarded.

[Captain Shrek]

To find out if the poster is a girl:

1) Wait for them to start posting angrily.
2) Ask them if it's their periods talking.
3) Success.


Disclaimer: Your chances of continuing any meaningful social interactions with the poster-revealed-female after such a test will be minimal.

Wow. Playing WoW does turn one into a dark knight.

 

[Angthoron]

To find out if the poster is a girl:

1) Wait for them to start posting angrily.
2) Ask them if it's their periods talking.
3) Success.


Disclaimer: Your chances of continuing any meaningful social interactions with the poster-revealed-female after such a test will be minimal.

Wow. Playing WoW does turn one into a dark knight.

Nah, I'd have not added the disclaimer in that case.

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets. They might tell it themselves eventually, and if they don't, it probably shouldn't matter anyway.

 

[Kane]

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets.

yer, even if you wanted sex you still couldnt get it. that's why its important to use SxxyGam3rGurrll as your nick.

 

[Angthoron]

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets.

yer, even if you wanted sex you still couldnt get it. that's why its important to use SxxyGam3rGurrll as your nick.

Besides, how do you people know I'm a dude? Maybe I'm a hot chick oh la la~

 

[Kane]

take me angothorn

 

[Konjad]

the only female on this forum is bee and me, so stfu

 

[Kane]

you're not even that konjad

not even that.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Nah, I'd have not added the disclaimer in that case.

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets. They might tell it themselves eventually, and if they don't, it probably shouldn't matter anyway.

I know just *one* girl who did not react violently to this. She was a teacher in a western country infested with towelheads. There they told her THIS in the class when she got angry with the students (~15-18 year olds) and calmly took the insult, next day telling it to me. Believe it or not, I was angrier than her at this.

 

[Konjad]

Nah, I'd have not added the disclaimer in that case.

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets. They might tell it themselves eventually, and if they don't, it probably shouldn't matter anyway.

I know just *one* girl who did not react violently to this. She was a teacher in a western country infested with towelheads. There they told her THIS in the class when she got angry with the students (~15-18 year olds) and calmly took the insult, next day telling it to me. Believe it or not, I was angrier than her at this.

so you're even worse than a woman? damn, shreek, that's terrible.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Nah, I'd have not added the disclaimer in that case.

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets. They might tell it themselves eventually, and if they don't, it probably shouldn't matter anyway.

I know just *one* girl who did not react violently to this. She was a teacher in a western country infested with towelheads. There they told her THIS in the class when she got angry with the students (~15-18 year olds) and calmly took the insult, next day telling it to me. Believe it or not, I was angrier than her at this.

so you're even worse than a woman? damn, shreek, that's terrible.

Hey at least I am not a pony.

 

[DraQ]

Konjad is a pony tranny.

 

[Konjad]

i am a female horse

 

[Captain Shrek]

i am a female horse

And we are a cis gendered/species scum, am I correct?

 

[Angthoron]

Nah, I'd have not added the disclaimer in that case.

Seriously though, it's pretty darn pointless trying to find out if someone's really a female over the internets. They might tell it themselves eventually, and if they don't, it probably shouldn't matter anyway.

I know just *one* girl who did not react violently to this. She was a teacher in a western country infested with towelheads. There they told her THIS in the class when she got angry with the students (~15-18 year olds) and calmly took the insult, next day telling it to me. Believe it or not, I was angrier than her at this.

Any normal woman will get offended, yes.

For the record, it's not something I'd ever say to anyone, unless I wanted to make sure I never speak with them again. Felt like an appropriate Codexian hook-up advice, though.

DAMNIT, it's been one day since I started scouring the web for BTE fodder and I'm already displaying sociopathic tendencies.

 

[evdk]

DAMNIT, it's been one day since I started scouring the web for BTE fodder and I'm already displaying sociopathic tendencies.

"He was such a nice young man, officer. I simply cannot believe he really did kill and skin all those people."

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I don't get the point of the whole discussion. From my point of view it's really simple:
Sucess in life means earning enough income to support a family and to be able to finance your own and your families dreams/hobbies. Those hobbies may include computer gaming or something else, like sports.
Being "successful" at your hobbies may be important for you but objectively it is irrelevant if it doesn't earn you money. Likewise, if your hobby takes up so much of your time that it prevents you from pursuing a career and earning money to support yourself and your family, this is bad - no matter what hobby. An jobless amateur league soccer player who devotes his whole life to the sport yet can't turn it into a professional career is as much of a loser as an basement-dwelling MMO-playing video games addict. If however, both of them had a career going on besides their hobby that allowed them to support themselves and their family they would be succesful in the basic meaning of the word.

Extraordinary succes is when someone's does really meaningful work (a doctor or an inventor for example) and/or when he is really good at what he does, to the point of being a respected authority in his field, but only a few people are lucky enough to achieve that status.

That's all there is to it. If you like reading literature, playing games, collecting stuff, climbing mountains, doing sports and so on that's great, but they are hobbies (unless you're able to turn them into a career that will earn you money) and having "success" in those activities doesn't really amount to anything besides improving your own self-esteem. Thus the question whether video games can pose a challenge and allow you to have success is not really important. Personaly I'd say that no, in most cases games don't offer any real challenge. However, some multiplayer titles where you play against other players do, and that's why some people have managed to turn the activity of playing those games into a professional career (for example Korean Starcraft players).

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I am reading this thread, my brothers (and sister?), and keep wondering how all of your SUCCESS evaluation frameworks would apply to someone like, for instance, Grigori Perelman. Is Perelman a loser, or a winner at life?

 

[Kane]

I am reading this thread, my brothers (and sister?), and keep wondering how all of your SUCCESS evaluation frameworks would apply to someone like, for instance, Grigori Perelman. Is Perelman a loser, or a winner at life?

Perelman is a genius. Genius stand beyond the silly frameworks of our society, that's kinda the definition.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

He's currently unemployed and living with his mother, has no real friends, no close contacts in the mathematical community, and he stubbornly turned down an offer of fame and serious money based on nothing but his butthurt at the conduct of some asshole chinks. If his obsession were in some less-prominent field, he'd be considered a total loser by someone like raw.

This is just a contemporary example, you can find multitudes of prominent artists, writers, poets, philosophers and scientists who dedicated their lives to their work, at the expense of everything else, and received little to no recognition from their peers. According to you, raw, they would be losers, too.

 

[PorkaMorka]

This article is not a valid criticism of video games, because the author's brain doesn't work right.

Somehow he is getting an ego boost or feeling of self satisfaction from winning in easy games. That shouldn't happen. Easy games are designed to let you win. It's like when you are a little kid and an adult lets you win at sports.

When someone lets you win, you shouldn't feel satisfaction. You should feel contempt and/or disgust. My brain works right, so when the developer lets me win in easy games, I feel disgusted. That's why I usually stop playing easy games very quickly.

There are accomplishments to be had in the world of video gaming. They involve doing stuff that is difficult. For example, crushing and humiliating other players in highly competitive skill based multiplayer online games. Or winning a roguelike on ironman. That's probably more of an accomplishment than collecting a really awesome stamp or building a little wooden birdhouse from a kit.

Hobbies are surrogate activities, in the Unabomberian sense of the term. They're mostly pointless activities with little real value, although some of them count as exercise. However, hobbies do provide opportunities for accomplishments. Those accomplishments just happen to be meaningless.

Winning a bar league softball tournament is an accomplishment. Your team should feel some shallow level of satisfaction. Winning a competitive skill based multiplayer online game is an accomplishment. You should feel some shallow level of satisfaction. However in both cases, these accomplishments are meaningless. They don't matter and nobody cares about them except your mom. But unfortunately, that's true of most things that we do nowadays.

Video games are a negative, harmful influence and they should probably be banned. But the original article is way off base with regard to the reasons why they are harmful. Because the author's brain doesn't work right.

 

[DraQ]

I am reading this thread, my brothers (and sister?), and keep wondering how all of your SUCCESS evaluation frameworks would apply to someone like, for instance, Grigori Perelman. Is Perelman a loser, or a winner at life?

A metagamer.

"He was such a nice young man, officer. I simply cannot believe he really did kill and skin all those people."

Me neither. Skinning alone would work just fine.

 

[Kane]

He's currently unemployed and living with his mother, has no real friends, no close contacts in the mathematical community, and he stubbornly turned down an offer of fame and serious money based on nothing but his butthurt at the conduct of some asshole chinks. If his obsession were in some less-prominent field, he'd be considered a total loser by someone like raw.

This is just a contemporary example, you can find multitudes of prominent artists, writers, poets, philosophers and scientists who dedicated their lives to their work, at the expense of everything else, and received little to no recognition from their peers. According to you, raw, they would be losers, too.

Perelman is a genius. Genius stand beyond the silly frameworks of our society, that's kinda the definition.

Tshoo tshooo all aboard train sperg, next stop Cowboy Moment!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Yep, clearly the reading comprehension train left the raw station a long time ago.

 

[DraQ]

Yep, clearly the reading comprehension train left the raw station a long time ago.

 

[Kane]

Yep, clearly the reading comprehension train left the raw station a long time ago.

Not really. You just like to hallucinate stuff other people wrote when they didn't - even if they repeatedly and explicitely tell you that.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Allright, my dear brother raw, I will follow in the footsteps of our scholastic antecedents, and attempt to summarize the argument thus far:

raw: Success can only be measured through the approval of one's social peers.
Cowboy Moment: Wait, there's been a lot of people throughout history whom we'd describe as successful, and who were all but ignored by their peers.
raw: They don't count because GENIUS.

Would you be satisfied with such a rendition, glorious co-discusser?

Come to think of it, this sequence of events reminds me of something. Did you somehow hack raw's account, Lyric Suite?

 

[DraQ]

Better to fail as a genius than to succeed as a kotick or some other shitstain.

 

[Kane]

Allright, my dear brother raw, I will follow in the footsteps of our scholastic antecedents, and attempt to summarize the argument thus far:

raw: Success can only be measured through the approval of one's social peers.
Cowboy Moment: Wait, there's been a lot of people throughout history whom we'd describe as successful, and who were all but ignored by their peers.
raw: They don't count because GENIUS.

Would you be satisfied with such a rendition, glorious co-discusser?

That is...

not what you said and your argument is also mostly wrong. You were talking about Perelman, who is classified as a genius and not just "people whe'd describe as successful, and who were all but ignored by their peers." If you are ignored by your peers you are not successful. In fact, a genius who is "all but ignored by their peers" and is later discovered to be one - usually post-mortem - is called a "misjudged genius". Yes, these people usually die as poor bums because they never had the chance to turn their genius into success and only in some cases we're lucky to discover their genius much much later. Most aren't succesful, though. And that is actually kinda the flipping point here, because people who have a lot of potential but fail to unfold it for whatever reasons, may not succeed at all... which in turn opens up the current debate about equality of opportunity.
Now, all this means fuck all for your specific example of Perelman, because he is already known to be a genius. Within his field of expertise he obviously has great success, success wrt. the rest of his life not so much, but that's mostly because he turns down all offers to change that and prefers a solemn life with his mother. That is another point though, a genius is mostly also mentally ill in some form or another, which proliferates failure. A genius has to overcome his own mental illness and his inability to tie his shoes, roll the dice on his field of genius actually being relevant at all at his time of life and have a good portion of luck to be actually able to realize his potential, that is: having enough money and a conductive enviornment.

What is true though is that, yes, success can only be defined via your peers and yes genius fall outside this cathegory, because they're genius.